Life under Putin all that much different?

[RadioRaheem84]

Joker I am debating says Putin reigned in most of the oligarchs and stabilized the 90s economy. I think this guy is full of shit but I haven't read much in the Russian economy as of late.

Any thoughts?

[Noinu]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7678874

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Vladimir_Putin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putinism



Have to admit, don't know much about it either, but these few pages seemed like okay reads. I mean, yes, not all that reliable, but still.

[RadioRaheem84]

Thanks.

But what is Putin's deal?

Is he nostalgic for the USSR? The news like to paint him as though he is but he obviously is not concerned for the socialist aspects of the former USSR but merely the control. Something that itself is vastly over exaggerated in the Western press to begin with. I am sure there is more political repression under Putin than post-Stalin Russia.

He seems to have just reigned in the extreme elements of the Russian economy that were dragging the nation to hell during the 90s. He is still a capitalist first and foremost and is riding on a nationalist ticket.

He is closer to a Slobadon Milosovich.

[Noinu]

Thanks.

But what is Putin's deal?

Is he nostalgic for the USSR? The news like to paint him as though he is but he obviously is not concerned for the socialist aspects of the former USSR but merely the control. Something that itself is vastly over exaggerated in the Western press to begin with. I am sure there is more political repression under Putin than post-Stalin Russia.

He seems to have just reigned in the extreme elements of the Russian economy that were dragging the nation to hell during the 90s. He is still a capitalist first and foremost and is riding on a nationalist ticket.

He is closer to a Slobadon Milosovich.

I really have no idea what his deal is, maybe he just really likes to be in control? I mean, he still is.

When it comes to political repression, yeah, it's quite possible that you're right. Most likely it will only get worse the longer he's in charge...
But if one thinks about the aspect of power alone, he has similarities with almost anyone who's had that much power. Probably not nostalgic, just taking advantage of a situation that really suits him.

[Red Future]

In regard to life the country's economy is more stable than the 1990s but still worse off than the 1980s under the CPSU.Wealth inequality is particularly acute.

[Dimentio]

He is a Russian "state patriot" and a kind of autocrat at home, who is reminiscent of leaders like Atatürk. In terms of the economic policies, he is very much what kind of leader that Ron or Rand Paul would be in America. In Russia, the overall tax rate is 13% and completely flat. If Putin was an American, he would have been on the right of centre of the Republican Party.

[the last donut of the night]

Hell, talk to any Russians and they'll tell you it's gotten worse.

[milk]

The centralisation of political power to Moscow under Putin (he'll be back) has seen the reassertion of an old tradition in Russian political culture, in contemporary form, and that's the way it's going to be from now on, unfortunately.

[scourge007]

From what I've read about Putin , he's more concerned about power more than anything else.

[The Red Next Door]

In Russia, it seems that a wealthy business owner can use the anti terrorist unit force to remove people from their property so he can build some kind of shit. I saw it in a doc and HIV and AIDS are high.

[L.A.P.]

Vladimir Putin is by all means almost as capitalist as it gets but he just goes around saying the "fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy" and "Stalin was a hero" to just appeal to the Soviet Union/Joseph Stalin nostalgics.

[Red Commissar]

Yeah, he's using nationalism to his own gain to get supporters, particularly among impressionable youth. He's presented himself as a strongman leader trying to restore the "glory" of Russia and use populist rhetoric to make it seem he has reigned in the oligarchs. But really things haven't changed much and capitalism is on track- he's just refocused economic power into the national bourgeois as opposed to forces outside the country . The fact that he was put in his position by Yeltsin also says a lot about his character.

[Die Neue Zeit]

On the very, very bright side, Putin has shown how a National Leader of a Third World class coalition of the proletariat and non-bourgeois "national" and "populist" classes should deal with bourgeois opposition:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/peoples-histories-blocs-t142332/index.html

[Apoi_Viitor]

Joker I am debating says Putin reigned in most of the oligarchs and stabilized the 90s economy.

Putin did reign in on some of the oligarchs, but that was simply to appeal to the Russian masses, who were (quite justly) aggravated at the massive wealth inequalities that originated from Yeltsin's rule. Also, the economy did stabilize under Putin, but that had little to do with him, and more to do with the Russian scientists finding massive oil reserves in Russian territory.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's to the credit of the Brezhnev era more than anything else.

[RadioRaheem84]

The guy seems like the typical Republican Nationalist like the Turkish government under the Ataturk or Chiang Kai Shek.

A guy that hates to see rampant pillaging by oligarchs but still wants free market capitalism under some rules, and also appeases the masses with nationalist rhetoric.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Putin's not a free marketeer. He praised Viktor Chernomyrdin for a reason: that ex-PM's foundation of the state company Gazprom.

He wants some form of state capitalism centered around oil and especially gas, which is what his right-hand man Sechin really wants. Others in Putin's circle instead want industrial re-development.